In 1959, Peter Weiss made his first feature length film, Hägringen, with Staffan Lamm and Gunilla Palmstierna in leading roles. The script to the rather experimental film is based on the novel Document I which he had published in Swedish in 1949 on his own initiative. The film shows the encounter of a young man with a large city that is yet unknown to him. His passage, accompanied by often surrealistic and absurd impressions, turns into a tour-de-force through various urban milieus.
Tag: SWEDEN
The rich Haller family have lost nearly all their money after investing in the stock market. They need more money, but from where? They have a young house-maid, Sara, who inherits a fortune from a rich uncle in Australia. Sara is in love with the son in the family, Georg Haller, but he won’t marry for money. She has to spend all her money if she will ever marry him…
Doctor Glas is told in the form of a journal. The main character is Dr. Glas, a physician. The antagonist is Reverend Gregorius, a morally corrupt clergyman. Gregorius’ beautiful young wife confides in Dr. Glas that her sex life is making her miserable and asks for his help. Glas, in love with her, agrees to help even though she already has another adulterous lover. He attempts to intervene, but the Reverend refuses to give up his “marital rights”- she must have sex with him whether she likes it or not (at the time, a wife was legally the property of her husband, and subsequently had no right to say no). So, in order to make his love happy, he begins to plot her husband’s murder.
Story about a small dance band in the late ’50s making pocket money by doing local weddings and hops with decorously swung versions of ‘Sugar In The Morning.’ Their leader is Sven Klang, brilliantined and eternally grinning, a car dealer by day and a people dealer by night. His control of the band, on and off stage, in and out of bed, is complete – until the arrival of the new alto saxophonist who has played the Stockholm club circuit, a full-time jazz man whose art is his life.
An American journalist travels to Istanbul with his daughter to find information about the family of his son-in-law. Something terrifying seems to have happened to them. They soon find themselves in a dangerous plot including weapons smuggling.
The patriarch Knut Borg (Victor Sjöström) lives an ascetic Christian life together with his family on his homestead, Knutsgården. His son Johannes is studying to become a priest, but when his fiancée dies Johannes loses his mind and thinks he is the Saviour. Intense drama about mental illness, faith and doubt, which became an international success and got unexpected political relevance when the Danish playwrighter, who wrote the play Ordet is based upon, got murdered by the Nazis one week after the opening night.
While it’s not really a part of the Hillman-movies, Vita frun features Holmsten as the detective Hillman and along for the ride is also regulars Hallberg and Granhagen. The plot is simple enough: A ghost, called “vita frun” (The White Lady), is blamed for the strange deaths that occur at a country manor. But is it really a ghost?
This short film is only thirteen minutes long, but it is a razor-sharp depiction of civilization pushing out Europe’s last wilderness in Northern Sweden. The white man is hunting ptarmigan, enormous exer-tions are being expended, watercourses are running dry and forests are being devastated. Thirteen minutes about a world in change. But un-fortunately not for the better.